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21 January, 2014

Another Week in the Most Magical Place in the World

We recently returned from
another trip to Walt Disney World. When we borrowed DVC points for
our last trip (see the write up for that trip here), we had enough
left over for a week in a deluxe studio during the off-peak season,
so we spent Kathy’s birthday at Saratoga Springs.

We wanted to go Saturday
to Saturday, but due to the RunDisney events that weekend, every
place we were looking at were booked up Saturday night, so we had to
go Sunday to Saturday. Part of the reason we wanted to fly down on
Saturday is because the Southwest flight (the only direct flight from
ROC to MCO) on Saturday departs at 7.30a, whereas the flight on
Sunday takes off at 2.55p. With a 2 ½ hr flight, it basically kills
a whole day of your vacation.

On this trip, we were
able to take advantage of the new Magic Bands and the My Disney
Experience which includes pre-scheduling up to 3 Fast Pass+ (FP+) per
day. We didn’t really have any issues. I was ready for there to be
some glitches, especially after reading in the forums about other
peoples’ snafus on their trips. The only real problem we had was
that the finger that Kathy had used last time we were there to verify
her fingerprint at the park entrance had a blister on it, and the
scanner didn’t recognize it. When it didn’t work, the supervisor
was able to reset the fingerprint and let us in. The next time we
went into the park, it re-scanned the image, and we had no other
issues. They had removed the legacy paper Fast Pass machines from
Animal Kingdom in December, and they removed them from Magic Kingdom
while we were down there this week. The plan is to remove them from
Hollywood Studios and EPCOT next week.

Wishes Fireworks

We got to the hotel about
7. We dropped off our carry-on bags and headed to the Magic Kingdom.
We arrived as the Wishes fireworks extravaganza was just starting. We
made our way towards Main Street USA to watch the show. After the
show, we headed towards Tomorrowland for something to eat. On this
trip, we were looking for a low-key, (relatively) low-cost trip, so
we didn’t set up any Advance Dining Reservations (ADR). We were
just going to eat at the quick service places when we got hungry. Our
first stop was at Cosmic Rays. This was a new place for me, I hadn’t
eaten here before, and I wanted to watch Sonny Eclipse, the
animatronic entertainer that sings and tells corny jokes. As we were
standing in line, we found fellow Knighthawk fans! I got a
cheeseburger, it was decent, but it was late in the day, so it wasn’t
super fresh, it wasn’t bad.. I’ve had better burgers (and I’ve
had worse). One thing I liked about this place is that they have the
plastic cheese dispenser. Disney fries are good on their own, but add
a healthy (?) dose of that hot gooey plastic cheese, and they are
that much better!

We only had a couple
hours in the park before they closed for the night, but we were able
to get on a few rides, including one of my favorites, the Jungle
Cruise at night. I love how the flood lights on the boat light up the
jungle. We also managed to fit in the Haunted Mansion, Pirates and a
couple others before the park closed at 10.

Beauty and the Beast Stage Show

Monday morning we headed
over to Hollywood Studios. We had FP+ for Toy Story Midway Mania,
Lights Motors Action! And the Great Movie Ride. We also caught the
Indiana Jones stunt show, The One Man one dream exhibit about the
life of Walt Disney, The Little Mermaid, The Beauty and the Beast
Stage show and Fantasmic. This night was the extra magic hours at
Hollywood, so after those not staying on property, we went on Toy
Story again, a ride that during the day wait times in excess of 90
min or more are common, and only waited about 20 minutes. We ate
lunch at the Backlot express, I had a cheeseburger that had onion
strings and allegedly a horseradish sauce (I couldn’t taste it),
but it was a good burger. Before we went into Fantasmic, I grabbed a
Mickey pretzel with a cheese cup; Kathy got a Churro (and became a
fan).

Tuesday took us to EPCOT.
Our FP+ were for Spaceship Earth, Sorin’ and Finding Nemo. The EMH
were early at EPCOT that day, so we were able to get on Sorin’
early, and I was able to get on Test Track. We tried the new flavors
at Club Cool. I am a bit disappointed that they got rid of the lemon
honey flavor from Israel, but am not really sad to see the rest go.
There wasn’t a clear cut favorite in the new batch of international
flavors, but it was cool to try Peru’s Inca Kola again. We have a
new favorite snack at EPCOT, we split an order of fish and chips from
the Great Britain pavilion. It would be a bit small to be a meal for
someone, but it makes a nice snack for 2 people. We also tried the
new Spice Road Table restaurant at the Morocco pavilion. It had just
opened a couple of days prior. They will be taking reservations in
the future, but since they are in the ‘soft launch’ phase, we
were able to walk right in. It is a Tapas style place that serves
food from all over the Mediterranean. I got a sampler plate that
featured a chicken roll, a lamb slider and a sausage. It wasn’t a
lot of food for $16, and I didn’t love the flavors, so we probably
won’t be going back on future trips. I stayed for the Illuminations
show and met a cool couple from Jersey who had honeymooned at Disney
10 years ago, and this is their first trip back. We chatted for a
while waiting for the show to start.

The lions at the Kilimanjaro Safari

Wednesday took us to
Animal Kingdom. In my opinion, it is a very underappreciated
park. We had FP+ for the Safari Ride, Kali River, and Finding Nemo.
The EMH was early that day, so we went straight for an extra run on
the safari ride; it is one of my favorite things to do at Disney. I
am always able to get some great shots of the wildlife, even with my
phone! When it came time to do the River ride, Kathy didn’t want to
ride it since it was a bit cool that day. I was still game, so I
headed over. When I got to the entrance, the cast member told me not
to waste a FP+ on it, since we only can have 3 per day, there was no
line. I was able to walk right on and change our FP+ for a different
attraction, we added the Bug’s Life show to our docket (which we
didn’t need to use a FP+ for either, but you can’t use FP+ for
the same ride 2x in the same day, otherwise, we would have gone on
the safari ride a 3rd time).

Another attraction that I
make sure to hit at least once each trip to Animal Kingdom is the
Flights of Wonder bird show. It is very well done (even if it is a
bit heavy on the ‘save the planet’ propaganda...). I’ve written
before that I am not really a fan of roller coasters, but I wanted to
try the Expedition Everest at least once, to say that I did, so I
headed over by myself. The wait time wasn’t too bad, I was able to
get on in about 30 min or so. The ride is very well done. The queue
takes you through a travel office to board a train to the mountains,
right through the sacred Yeti territory. It is a very fast, winding
coaster that goes in and out of the Mt Everest, so it goes from light
to dark and back very quickly. Would I ride it again? In a word, no.
But I am glad I did ride it. When I

got off the ride, I needed to
take a minute, so I found a spot in the shade to sit for a spell.
After I recovered, we headed over to Dinoland USA for a meal at the
Restaurantasorus. I wasn’t really up to the regular menu, so I
ordered the corndog nugget meal. It included little corndog nuggets,
fries, apple juice and grapes, all served in a plastic bucket with a
shovel that you would take to the beach. It was pretty cool, and with
the condition of my stomach, it worked out great! Since the park
closes early (5p) in the winter, we headed back to the room to relax.
We grabbed dinner at the Artist Pallet, and relaxed around the
resort. We each got the Wednesday special, chicken parm. It’s tough
to mess that up.. it was served with penne. I would have liked a
little more pasta, but it wasn’t a bad meal. After eating, we
wandered around the resort, looking at the community center, we
walked by a couple of the pools on site, then back to the room to
relax.

Thursday morning found us
back at the Magic Kingdom. EMH were early that morning, so we

The Haunted Mansion

headed
over to Peter Pan, since that ride often queues up lengthy wait times
during the day. Our FP+ that day were for Peter Pan, The Little
Mermaid and the Jungle Cruise. We took a leisurely day around the
park, having done most of what we wanted to do. We made sure to hit
up the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, our old standby Carrousel of
Progress, and of course the People Mover. Our dining choices this day
took us to Gaston’s Tavern for the cinnamon roll (this has become a
‘must do’ for me, ranking right up there with the Dole whip
float), we had lunch at the Village Haus (I had the chicken ceaser
salad and we ate on the balcony overlooking the main dining floor)
and dinner at Pecos Bills (I had the taco salad). After dinner we
headed over to the Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary for the
exclusive Top of the World Lounge.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Admission to this lounge is
limited to members of the DVC. I had just found out about this place
a couple of weeks prior to our trip. It was Kathy’s birthday, so I
wanted to do something special. The lounge was busy, but not packed.
We ordered the soft pretzel and the 7 layer cake. By the time we
finished eating the snacks, it was time for the fireworks to start,
so we headed out to the balcony, 16 floors up, with a clear view of
the Kingdom. It made for a great view of Wishes, especially since
they play the music from the show over the sound system on the deck.
The park was open for another couple hours after the fireworks, but
we were ready to call it a night, so we headed back to the hotel. One
thing we had done most days this trip is take a break in the mid
afternoon and head back to the room to relax before heading back to
the park. On this day, while waiting for the bus to go back to the
Magic Kingdom, we decided to see if there was a table available for
breakfast the next morning. Using the My Disney Experience app on my
phone, I was able to secure a reservation for breakfast ‘Ohana.

We started Friday off at
breakfast at ‘Ohana. We took the bus from Saratoga Springs to the
Magic

Kingdom; we then boarded the Monorail to the Polynesian. We
were a bit early because we wanted to make sure we allowed enough
time for transit. We walked down to the lagoon and checked out the
pool, beach, and the docks where the boat rentals are (something to
keep in mind for future visits). By this time, it was time to check
in for breakfast. They offer the chance to have your picture taken,
that they will then try to sell you, we skipped that part. We didn’t
want to pay $35 for a 5x7 of us. We had eaten dinner at ‘Ohana on
our last trip and I didn’t love it, but I wanted to try it for
breakfast, and I’m glad we did. It was a lot of fun. The format for
breakfast is an all you can eat feast, served family style. It isn’t
a buffet; they bring the food to you, similar to the way dinner is at
the Liberty Tree Tavern. They sat us down with a basket of sweet
breads and took our drink orders. Moments later, out comes a platter
of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and potatoes along with a plate of
fresh cut fruit (pineapple, raspberries and melon) and their special
juice. It is a blend of orange, mango, guava and papaya. It was very
tasty. They also bring out Mickey waffles (small Belgian waffles
shaped like Mickey Mouse). They keep bringing the stuff out as much
as you want. This is also a character breakfast, which normally isn’t
a big deal for me, but it was fun to have pictures with Lelo and
Stich as well as Mickey and Pluto. Our general rule is to not repeat
a dining experience, until we have tried all of the ones that
interest us, but we do have an exception (Liberty Tree Tavern for
dinner), I think that this one will be added to the ‘no duplicate
exemption’ list. After a few pictures with the Tikis and Maoris, we
rolled ourselves to the Magic Kingdom for our last day in the parks
for this trip.

Friday was originally
scheduled to be an EPCOT day, since that is where the EMH hours were,
but we figured we had done everything we wanted to do at EPCOT, so we
decided to change all of our FP+ over to the Magic Kingdom. We had
the Jungle Cruise, Mickey’s Philharmagic and Buzz Lightyear. Since
we had such a large breakfast, we really didn’t need to eat much
else until later that day. We did make sure to hit up Aloha Isle to
get a Dole Whip float. It isn’t a trip to Disney without having at
least 1 of those bad boys. We made sure to hit all the attractions
that we wanted to, since it will be a while before we are back.
Around dinner time, we hit up Pecos Bill’s again for a taco salad.
After a quick run through the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse, we
hunkered down for the castle light show and Wishes. We picked a spot
towards the end of Main Street USA inside a taped off ‘viewing’
area. We had a slightly obstructed view of the castle, so we couldn’t
see the light show all that well, but it was a great spot to watch
the fireworks. There were people coming and going, and a whole lot
more not moving, waiting and watching. There was a single cast member
trying to direct traffic and

Wishes Fireworks

fighting a losing battle. After the show
ended, there was a mass exodus out of the park, despite it being open
for another 2 hours. When the crowd thinned, we headed back into the
park to hit those last few attractions we wanted to make sure we got
in. As we were heading back into the park, they played the
announcement that they were going to be starting the light show in 10
minutes. I wasn’t sure if they were really going to, or if someone
hit the wrong button. Turns out, they did play it again. This time,
we had a prime viewing spot and most of the people had already left
for the night, so we got a great view of the show. It is a very cool
effect. It really brings the castle to life. At the Monsters Inc.
Laugh Floor, I was picked to play Sully, and was up on the big
screen.

Saturday morning, we made
arrangements for bell services to pick up our luggage. We checked
into our airline then shopped in the gift shop for a couple of last
minute souvenirs. At 10, we boarded the Magic Express back to the MCO
to await our journey home. Disney provides a nice service, you can
check into your airline and check your bags at your hotel, that way
when you get to the airport, you just have to go through security,
then to the terminal and get on your plane and go home. I do like the
new videos they play on the Magic Express busses. They show parts of
the park that you may not already be aware of. On our return flight,
the plane was equipped with Wi-Fi. The planes that have this feature
allow you to stream live TV on several channels, courtesy of Dish
Network. It is a nice way to pass the time while you are in the air.

All in all, it was a good
trip. We hit everything we wanted to. We got a good Disney fix.
Hopefully it will be enough to hold us over until our next trip,
which looks like it won’t be until the fall/winter of 2015 or the
spring of 2016.